Reborn From the Cosmos

Miniarc-Bad Tidings 09

Maxine didn’t know how she’d ended up a pirate wrangler. She did know that she didn’t enjoy her new role.

The rationale behind the unspoken designation made sense. She needed to return to Quest. Rey was tagging along with her, regardless of her opinions about it. Rey had taken a liking to her and tended to listen to her directions. When the alternative was rampant destruction and lengthy delays, Maxine had no option but to accept her new duty.

It wasn’t all bad.

Rey was not the strongest or the meanest sailor in Graywatch. Her reputation was more of recklessness and rampant insanity than power. She wouldn’t be leveling a city any time soon, but people feared her because they couldn’t predict her. Someone without fear for consequences, or any fear at all, could do a lot of damage even without overwhelming strength. Rey was the special kind of mad that could walk across a room with a jovial smile until she reached her target and then put a dozen holes in them.

Life had shown Maxine that the more people obtained, the more greedily they hoarded their possessions. Her father no longer feared an empty purse. He had too much money to spend in a lifetime. And yet, heavy rebukes came down the line for stores that showed even the slightest decline in profits. The man couldn’t stand to lose so much as a copper.

The pirate captains were the same. They’d risen to the top and firmly lodged themselves above their fellows. The thought of assassins or upstarts didn’t keep them up. The nameless holder of a grudge they’d forgotten burning one of their ships in port did. It was a given that the perpetrator would suffer death or worse but that wouldn’t bring back the expensive ship and whatever cargo it was holding. It wouldn’t replace the lost income or pay for the damage a crew without work inevitably caused.

Pointless loss. That’s what powerful people feared most. That meant they feared troublemakers.

Understandably, Artor wasn’t willing to trust Rey to complete an errand and had sent several escorts. Maxine assumed they were raiders as, aside from the few merchants that traded with the city, that group were the only ones with means for traveling great distances over land. They looked the part, with plenty of leather and weapons between them.

Yet, they treated Maxine with a rare deference. Reinholdt, the quiet man whose countenance didn’t match the grand naming sense of his parents, hadn’t said a word of complaint when Maxine delayed their departure to accommodate Rey. Whenever she needed anything, he jumped to it or made sure one of the lackeys beneath him did. They greeted her in the mornings and served her first during mealtimes.

Maxine didn’t grow fangs and claws overnight so she could only attribute their favor to Rey. Namely, that she kept the crazy whaler under control. It was a bribe and a threat rolled into one. They showed her how easy they could make her life but what went unsaid after every assistance was that they could also do the opposite. It was their job to rein in Rey, but if they suffered, Maxine’s people wouldn’t escape without consequences.

The content of which the merchant hoped to never learn. Her role wasn’t taxing except for mentally. She particularly hated the whaler’s unnerving tendency to intrude on her privacy. Rey jumped into Maxine’s carriage to chat whenever she wanted. She invited herself to eat from Maxine’s bowl.

Generally, she was a nuisance but not an unbearable one. She was also easily distracted by her disgusting treats, so it wasn’t impossible for Maxine to steal a few moments of peace.

Though her ploys didn’t always work.

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A week into their journey, they stopped early to detour toward a spring. Aside from the essential need to refresh their water stores, it offered a rare chance to wash up. The sailors and raiders didn’t care much for the small luxury, so Maxine didn’t need to be conservative with her time. Steaming hot water would have been a blessing for her aching muscles, but with soap in one hand, a soft cloth in the other, and only the sounds of a peaceful evening around her, Maxine was the most relaxed she’d been since leaving Quest.

Until something in the water broke the surface in a great burst, spraying her with the cool water.

The merchant was too dumbfounded to utter a proper scream, a scratchy squeak soft as a whisper barely escaping her tight throat. The paralyzing shock gave way to fear, which was then swat aside by exasperation, only for the fear to come back with a vengeance, grabbing hold of her with cold hands.

At first, Maxine relaxed when she recognized the shape as Rey and not a horrible creature that would drag her beneath the water before devouring her. However, once she really processed what she was seeing, she wondered if the monster was the better option.

Tan skin broken up by patches of strange colors and textures; some parts covered by small, iridescent scales that gleamed despite the weak light while others were covered in smooth, shiny skin that reminded the merchant of the soft lizards that hung around small ponds and water sources.

On the back of the whaler’s thighs were long, milky white things. They reminded Maxine of ribbons, both for their thinness and the fluttering way they move through the air, as if guided by a private breeze. Or perhaps the tongue of a snake as it tasted the air. And the most striking oddities by far were on her shoulders. Pincers that belonged on insects and nowhere else, black as night. A pair on either side, each as long as a dagger and twitching occasionally, the small movements reminding Maxine of someone thoughtlessly tapping a table when preoccupied.

Combined with her unnaturally wide smile, Rey resembled something that children feared was hiding under their beds.

Maxine thought she was immune to the whaler’s strangeness but with the whole of it suddenly thrust before her sensibilities, she found herself floundering. She bowed her head, unable to stand looking at the strange creature masquerading as a woman a moment longer, and focused on her breathing. Each long exhale pushed against the swell of unease that threatened to make her do something stupid, like attacking Rey in a hysterical fit.

“No fancy pants now, heh.”

Maxine had to try three times before her voice started working. “I would have appreciated it if you told me you’d be accompanying me.”

“Hey, I was first. Ya should have checked with me. Less ya wanted to see me, pervert.”

“Ah. Yes, that was my fault. I didn’t mean to intrude.” Never mind that Rey hadn’t spoken a word when the group discussed bathing.

Rey’s sigh was so long and heavy, Maxine couldn’t help looking up. She was relieved to see that the other woman had sank into the water, only her head breaking the surface. Maxine couldn’t read the whaler’s expression well with her head bowed, but her voice was thick with emotion.

“Why would ya? I’m a freak.”

Manners said she should deny the statement, reassure her that she was charming in her own ways or at least that she had her own strengths. Lying was fine, so long as she lied well.

The problem was that Maxine had no confidence that she could say the words with a straight face. Aside from being a disjointed picture of a human being, Rey was also a pain in personality. Her only redeeming quality was that she could show a scant amount of restraint when it was in her interest. And perhaps a similarly scant amount of consideration for those she bothered to consider.

“I used to be popular. ‘Till…” The rest of her speech was garbled as she lowered her head, small bubbles appearing in the water. She raised her head just as quickly, blue eyes narrowing as she moved closer to Maxine. “I bet yer popular.”

Maxine froze as Rey’s scarlet hand rose, a long finger tracing her cheek. “Such pretty skin. I bet people like ya. They’d like ya too.” Maxine jumped as the hand trailed down her neck before jabbing her in the chest. “They’d chew a hole right through here, yeah. Take your heart out of your body before worming through your stomach. They’d take the shape of your guts as they swallowed them. Then the little ones would make nests of your organs—"

The merchant teetered between panic and enforced calm. She didn’t like the look in Rey’s eyes. She knew it, had seen it right before the madwoman did something reckless. Worse, she was muttering, a sure sign of a depressive mood.

When Maxine usually saw the signs, she distanced herself from Rey’s target or, if the target was too precious, distracted her. But now she was the target and there were no distractions available. She didn’t even think of running. Her pampered physique honed for mingling in the capital couldn’t compare to the dense, wiry muscle of a sailor that fought monsters for a living.

Death had surprised her and there was no escaping from it. An outrageous situation that explained the outrageous words that slipped out as the gloomy gaze met her own.

“You’re beautiful.”

Maxine didn’t know who was more surprised. Her shock felt as tall as the Bleak Peaks, but Rey looked as if the words had physically struck her. Then she looked angry, her thin brows not taking away from the expression in the slightest as her face creased and her lips curled.

“Yer makin’ fun of me,” she growled.

The merchant didn’t know what prompted her to make such a ridiculous statement, but she knew what opened her mouth next; the certain knowledge that if she didn’t soothe Rey soon, regardless of the consequences, Maxine would personally experience the woman’s explosive temper. There was also no way to take back her words without insulting the whaler further.

There was no way but forward.

“Art is not always perfection,” Maxine hurriedly said. “The masters are known for creating things of beauty, but geniuses are known for challenging the definition of beauty. Sometimes, those images…offend, but they are a stark reminder of realities we would like to forget. They are raw. Powerful. Attractive, in their own way.” She hesitated but forced the next words out of her mouth. “The strange can be intense but intense doesn’t have to mean unpleasant. You…aren’t unpleasant.”

For several moments, Rey stared at her quietly.

Then she suddenly stood up. Maxine’s eyes squeezed shut, heart pounding to the rhythm of a horse’s gallop as she prepared herself to be mauled. But the pain didn’t come.

She opened her eyes to see the whaler had fled the water and was sprinting from the river without a care that she was running into the camp without a stitch of clothing. Maxine hastily escaped to the bank, eyes scanning the water for the threat.

Several moments later, Maxine still hadn’t found anything that could explain the whaler’s hasty retreat. Deciding not to risk it, she quickly finished washing up and returned before the unexpected blessing became a tragedy.